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ActiveX - Positive and Negative Aspects

Registry Easy Tool >> General Errors >> Active X - Positive and Negative Aspects

    The ActiveX control is designed by Microsoft Corp. and is based on ActiveX technology. Its main purpose is to empower Internet Explorer and Outlook to download and run various programs from Internet. An Active X will run instructions on your computer and can access all your files and folders and has permissions like yours, the currently logged user.

    Active X Controls - the Positive Aspects

    The good part of ActiveX controls is that they help users to fast and easily create interactive Web pages and email messages by using existing components. Searching the Internet, you will find a lot of free and paid ActiveX components that can help you add several features to your web pages with no effort.

Example: You want to create a web page that will open PDFs. You will go to download and insert that Active X component and it will perform the task in your page.

    Active X Controls - the Negative Aspects

    Even if Active X is so beneficial in creating interactive web pages, some security vulnerabilities will occur that are potentially dangerous for end-users.

    Having the same rights like a logged user,the Active X controls can harm the host computer and even its network. So, downloading and installing an Active X control on your system, you will give your trust to someone who you don't know and may not trust.

    With that, every time you will see a signed Active X, you will know that it is authenticated by an recognized developer. Anyway, even with that you will not have the full security implemented in your computer, because any signed control can be downloaded from an unsafe source, and a hacker can easily access the weakness of that Active X to install malware on your system.

    How to Protect your Network from unwanted Active X Control

    Changing the security setting of Internet Explorer you can disable anytime you want the Active X components from your computer. Doing this you will disable the main purpose of the Active X - interactive and user-friendly web pages.

    If you are working on a computer network you will disable Active X downloads on all server computers and set the firewall on your network to ensure that only authorized and approved Active X controls will be downloaded on your network systems.

    Then you must check that all computers on the network are regularly updated with fresh security updates and hotfixes, the antivirus programs are up-to-date and run regular scans to ensure that the entire network will be protected from malicious Active X components, viruses and spyware.

    All these precautions and a performant Registry Cleaner will help you to fight with malicious Active X components. Registry Cleaners scans system registry for all unsigned and unsafe Active X controls and removes them to empower the security of a computer.

    The security weakness in ActiveX controls represents a big security threat for PCs an networks. If there are not so many hacking issues related to Active X you must not be complacent about them. Even the Microsoft Corp. ask users to take care about the controls they download and install on their PCs.


    My recommendation is: Do not visit unsafe websites, don't open unsolicited emails, run regularly your Antivirus Program and your Registry Cleaner, and keep your system updated with latest security releases to be sure that your computer machine is safe from malware programs and hackers.